Just one hundred specially pressed cassettes of this ‘un out there via Seattle’s Eiderdown imprint, which by rights should be shifting fast. I’m only sorry that we haven’t gotten around to this sooner, given our original download got somewhat lost in the digital traffic waylaying our hard drive. This is Prana Crafter with ‘MindStreamBlessing’ – an album that I think I’m best advising might be a good idea that you find a quiet spot away from modern life traffic and the grinding fuss that society in general has to offer, kick back a spell, roll yourself a fat one and prepare yourself to be mellowed to within an inch of your life. Here sit six tracks of lazy eye drifting, at once smoking and woozy, perhaps a tad stoned, yet strangely hymnal and softly glazed in a sea faring soft psych roving, non-more so is this better evidenced than on the title track itself, whereupon applying some delicately intricate fretwork, a dreamy mosaic is etched that’s crafted in spell forming Australasian mistrals. ‘At Agartha’s Gate’ the opener incidentally, almost had us double taking to make sure I wasn’t listening to a lost sun hazed Archer Prewitt nugget. In sharp contrast, the fraying big beardy ‘as the weather commands’ has you thinking its author might be smoking a far superior and more exotic stash than you by this point, its delicately mesmeric mantra snaking hazily to the kind of primitive pathways occasionally frequented by the likes of Master Musicians of Bukkake. Something more still is the hazy narcotic filtering through which on initial listening has a cosmic Floyd-ian vibe attaching, yet scratch a little deeper and a sultrily reclining prairie blues toning ushers forth that had us much of a mind to re-investigate Ry Cooder’s simply smoking ‘Paris, Texas’ soundtrack work. Teased in poise and precision, the delicately harvested ‘Luminous Clouds’ had us momentarily recalling Roy Montgomery’s ‘true’ before the onset of some lulling proggy wigginess assumes centre stage, its bliss kissed tones surrendering beneath the shimmer of fire hazed sun spotting. ‘bardo nectar’ brings matters to a close, let’s be honest the clues is in the title for this slice of spectral psych ear gear trades upon the woozy and wasted freakery of the mighty Bardo Pond. Did we say essential? https://eiderdownrecords.bandcamp.com/album/prana-crafter-mindstreamblessing
the sunday experience 